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Plex Discussion Thread - Page 15

post #421 of 490
2/16/13 at 9:44am
I meant the mediacenter master plex agent scanner to fix your meta data. Not plex itself.
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post #422 of 490
2/16/13 at 10:22am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I am getting an error stating
Code:
"Server error when trying to fetch data"
for playback of my wtv files on my android phone. I was not getting this until just yesterday afternoon. I have restarted the server and also checked the mapping to the location of RecordedTV in the Media Manager but still get this problem.

I also installed the android update and the update for Plex on my PC to no avail.

Still not able to get this sorted out. All other content was playing fine on my android and the RecordedTV content plays fine using PlexWeb so long as it isn't copy protected. Then I tried messing with the server port forwarding settings and things went awry..
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post #423 of 490
2/16/13 at 2:59pm
maybe change the port forward settings back?
Or uninstall Plex and re install?
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post #424 of 490
2/16/13 at 5:53pm
I have the ports set to the same thing on my Phone as on my PLEX Server. It will play in the MyPlex web page but not on my phone. I probably need to re-read the instructions for this to get it set up right again..
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post #425 of 490
2/16/13 at 7:44pm
I haven't tried myself. Since I'm PlexPass member, I was trying out the beta Windows PMS and Android client. I wanted to try out the sync feature. It's an interesting feature.

I sync one movie, but when I went to play on the phone offline, I got an error that it couldn't play the file. I have to look more into how it works.

The android server looks interesting. I haven't tried it out yet.
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post #426 of 490
2/18/13 at 8:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

I meant the mediacenter master plex agent scanner to fix your meta data. Not plex itself.

Hey,

I had never heard of this until your post, but it seems like a pretty smart idea...why not tag my own music once the way I like it for any device. I never knew plex could read that info, so I stopped using mediacentermaster over a year ago.

Has anyone tried this?

I think I might download mediacentermaster again and give this a shot (i'm playing around with xbmc, and this would be useful).
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post #427 of 490
2/18/13 at 8:26pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mfusick View Post

Anyone try it yet ? (I am installing it now)

Can you provide a link to the Plex agent for media center master? I searched, but couldn't find it....
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post #428 of 490
2/19/13 at 7:10am
I had been runnig PLEX on my PC and android phone only. As I was tying to get RecordedTV to work on my phone I installed the PLEX Media Center on my HTPC for testing. Without any action on my part PLEX showed up as an item in my WMC menu strip. Is this normal?
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post #429 of 490
2/19/13 at 8:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

I had been runnig PLEX on my PC and android phone only. As I was tying to get RecordedTV to work on my phone I installed the PLEX Media Center on my HTPC for testing. Without any action on my part PLEX showed up as an item in my WMC menu strip. Is this normal?

When you install Plex Media Center, the WMC menu strip is automatically added.
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post #430 of 490
2/19/13 at 10:33am
Cool! I can use that to stream stuff from the internet from within WMC but everything else is superfluous and with the lack of frame-rate switching and HD Audio support won't really be used much.

I use MCM with MB mostly for my media aggregating. Is PLEX going to mess with that?

I am still having issues getting my RecordedTV (*.wtv) files to play via PLEX. I think it may be an issue with how I set up the libraries but haven't had time to delve into it much.
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post #431 of 490
2/19/13 at 3:06pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

Cool! I can use that to stream stuff from the internet from within WMC but everything else is superfluous and with the lack of frame-rate switching and HD Audio support won't really be used much.

I use MCM with MB mostly for my media aggregating. Is PLEX going to mess with that?

I am still having issues getting my RecordedTV (*.wtv) files to play via PLEX. I think it may be an issue with how I set up the libraries but haven't had time to delve into it much.

Plex doesn't mess with your existing metadata. It doesn't store any files at all in your media folders. Bummer about your wtv files not working. They worked perfectly fine for me, although I stopped using Plex for my recordings recently.

I'm also not sure what you meant in your first sentence. The Plex icon in WMC simply launches Plex Media Center. It doesn't stream anything within WMC, and Plex Media Center does have frame-rate switching.
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post #432 of 490
2/19/13 at 3:11pm
I can launch PLEX from within WMC to stream stuff like Comedy Central using the Channels within PLEX. MS took InternetTV out of WMC recently but it was pretty lame anyhow.

I tried the frame rate switching and it was laggy, to say the least. MPC-HC is doing a fine job for me.

I actually do have some wtv's working via plex but not streaming to my phone.. Other files stream okay, not perfectly all the time but okay.
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post #433 of 490
2/19/13 at 6:11pm
that's odd about your WTV files not playing well. I'm not sure what's going on. I've played them on the PlexHT fine, Plex Media Center fine, and Android (Evo 4G and GN2) no issues, and even Roku. With that said, fast forwarding or rewininding, that''s a different story. On Android, it basically crapped out. On the HTPC, just skipping the 30 seconds worked best. It basically crapped out when trying to fast forward. Needless to say, I like I can use it, but it's not the primary way I play back WTV files.

The Plex Media Center is only just short cut to launch Plex. It's just so you can stay within the 10' interface.
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post #434 of 490
2/19/13 at 6:16pm
I'm thinking of deleting the section and starting over. I only use it when I'm away at work or whereever.
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post #435 of 490
3/8/13 at 5:31am
I desperately hope there are some Plex/MacMini gurus here because here's my problem: What does hardware acceleration do?

Using Windows (bootcamp) on my Mac Mini, I keep getting frame rate drops in Plex Media Center. E.g. in VC-1 encoded movies, VCPU usage nears 100% and that's when it starts dropping frames.

I've tried hardware acceleration options in Plex (Crystal HD, DXVA2), and these seem to have no effect on CPU or VCPU usage, and no help with dropped frames. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

specs:
Mac Mini 2.5GHz i5
AMD Radeon HD 6630M
4GB RAM
Windows XP SP3
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post #436 of 490
3/8/13 at 9:41am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Reborn View Post

I desperately hope there are some Plex/MacMini gurus here because here's my problem: What does hardware acceleration do?

Using Windows (bootcamp) on my Mac Mini, I keep getting frame rate drops in Plex Media Center. E.g. in VC-1 encoded movies, VCPU usage nears 100% and that's when it starts dropping frames.

I've tried hardware acceleration options in Plex (Crystal HD, DXVA2), and these seem to have no effect on CPU or VCPU usage, and no help with dropped frames. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

specs:
Mac Mini 2.5GHz i5
AMD Radeon HD 6630M
4GB RAM
Windows XP SP3

You shouldn't have issues with hardware acceleration on or off. Download xbmc 12.0 and see if you have the same issue.
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post #437 of 490
3/8/13 at 11:52am
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

You shouldn't have issues with hardware acceleration on or off. Download xbmc 12.0 and see if you have the same issue.

Thanks for the thought. I already tried XBMC 12.0 and I get the same result. This seems odd because the hardware should be fast enough (even with VC-1)? Confused.
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post #438 of 490
3/8/13 at 2:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Reborn View Post

Thanks for the thought. I already tried XBMC 12.0 and I get the same result. This seems odd because the hardware should be fast enough (even with VC-1)? Confused.

Odd. Does it only happen on VC-1 one video? Also, I wonder if this has something to do with Windows XP. XP is pretty ancient at this point, but I really don't know whether that could be an issue.

Also, which graphics drivers did you install? The ones included with bootcamp or from the AMD website?
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post #439 of 490
3/8/13 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Odd. Does it only happen on VC-1 one video? Also, I wonder if this has something to do with Windows XP. XP is pretty ancient at this point, but I really don't know whether that could be an issue.

Also, which graphics drivers did you install? The ones included with bootcamp or from the AMD website?

All VC-1 videos have this issue when using Plex Media Center on the same PMS MacMini. As far as I can tell, no issues with h.264. Also, there are no issues when streaming VC-1 to a Mac OS Plex client on an identical MacMini configuration in another room. So bizarre ... the host MacMini can't playback VC-1 on its own machine, but it can stream flawlessly to an identical MacMini!?!? It can also stream to iOS Plex without issue too!

I downloaded and installed the most current AMD Catalyst software directly from the AMD website.

I'd rather stick with XP for now, but if I have to, I'll buy Windows 7. I'm hoping for a fix with my current setup so I don't have to install Windows 7 and reconfigure my bootcamp MacMini.
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post #440 of 490
3/8/13 at 3:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Also, I wonder if this has something to do with Windows XP. XP is pretty ancient at this point, but I really don't know whether that could be an issue.
Good catch, I hadn't noticed that in his previous post. I suspect that it very well *does* have to do with XP. Quite some time ago I purchased an Acer Revo 1600 nettop PC (Intel ATOM CPU w/NVIDIA ION GPU). A great bang-for-the-buck system (about $200 w/Windows XP, 1GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, HDMI out, gigabit ethernet, keyboard, and mouse). Performance was a problem under XBMC for XP. I could get around that by launching an external player (MPC-HC). You may want to download/try MPC-HC just to see if the CPU hogging goes away. Then, you'll have to decide if you want to go through the trouble of configuring things to launch MPC-HC as an external player, or change your OS. Windows 7 would work, but costs money. I suspect that you could get a Linux install working on the Mini as well, but I don't know the details. I'm using the OpenELEC.TV build for my Revo, and while they have an Intel i386 build, it seems to be designed for the newer Intel CPUs with on-board graphics, so you may not be able to make use of your AMD GPU, but it might still work (with you utilizing the on-board Intel graphics instead). The OpenELEC build works great on my Revo.
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post #441 of 490
3/10/13 at 8:31pm
I suspect XP is your main culprit. I had Windows XP install on a late 2009 Mac Mini and had lots of driver issues. This was before Plex went to Windows (Plex 8.5), so I had to use XBMC. Apple just didn't have the drivers for XP on the machine. Nevermind that the machines are designed for a 64bit environment. Unless you have one of those 64bit XP installation, you're running a 32 bit environment, and wasting half a gig a ram since Windows XP 32bit only recongizes up to 3.5GB of RAM.

The software used today in home theater PC wasn't designed, nor developed for Windows XP. It's all Vista or 7 or later.

When I switched to Windows 7, it was night and day in ease of setup and performance. I can't recommend it enough.

To help keep costs down, I would suggest getting upgrade version of Windows 7 or 8; I prefer Windows 7, but only because I don't think Metro is desktop friendly. Beyond that, Windows 8 is fine. Look up the instruction for doing the registry hack for a clean install. It's not hard, but you have to change one value in the registry and perform the rearm. MS got rid of reading a previous installation disc to see if you quality for the upgrade; they want it preinstalled. The registry hack circumvents removes it. And the retail upgrade version comes with both the 32bit and 64bit version of Windows; you'll want to use the 64bit. And the OSX disc has all the drivers for Windows 7. Heck, it'll even install the drivers for you. The Upgrade version will save you a good $40 or more dollars.

If you haven't noticed, I don't thiink Windows XP HTPC friendly. It's just too outdated. It's over ten years old.
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post #442 of 490
3/14/13 at 1:23pm
For some reason I have entire seasons of TV shows not showing up. I can create a new section for TV shows and add in the ones that don't show up the first time and they add perfectly fine. Seems the number I can get per section is around 10. Not sure what's causing it to happen. Any help?
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post #443 of 490
3/14/13 at 3:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lovekeiiy View Post

I suspect XP is your main culprit. I had Windows XP install on a late 2009 Mac Mini and had lots of driver issues. This was before Plex went to Windows (Plex 8.5), so I had to use XBMC. Apple just didn't have the drivers for XP on the machine. Nevermind that the machines are designed for a 64bit environment. Unless you have one of those 64bit XP installation, you're running a 32 bit environment, and wasting half a gig a ram since Windows XP 32bit only recongizes up to 3.5GB of RAM.

The software used today in home theater PC wasn't designed, nor developed for Windows XP. It's all Vista or 7 or later.

When I switched to Windows 7, it was night and day in ease of setup and performance. I can't recommend it enough.

To help keep costs down, I would suggest getting upgrade version of Windows 7 or 8; I prefer Windows 7, but only because I don't think Metro is desktop friendly. Beyond that, Windows 8 is fine. Look up the instruction for doing the registry hack for a clean install. It's not hard, but you have to change one value in the registry and perform the rearm. MS got rid of reading a previous installation disc to see if you quality for the upgrade; they want it preinstalled. The registry hack circumvents removes it. And the retail upgrade version comes with both the 32bit and 64bit version of Windows; you'll want to use the 64bit. And the OSX disc has all the drivers for Windows 7. Heck, it'll even install the drivers for you. The Upgrade version will save you a good $40 or more dollars.

If you haven't noticed, I don't thiink Windows XP HTPC friendly. It's just too outdated. It's over ten years old.

Quote:
Originally Posted by srauly View Post

Good catch, I hadn't noticed that in his previous post. I suspect that it very well *does* have to do with XP. Quite some time ago I purchased an Acer Revo 1600 nettop PC (Intel ATOM CPU w/NVIDIA ION GPU). A great bang-for-the-buck system (about $200 w/Windows XP, 1GB of RAM, 250GB hard drive, HDMI out, gigabit ethernet, keyboard, and mouse). Performance was a problem under XBMC for XP. I could get around that by launching an external player (MPC-HC). You may want to download/try MPC-HC just to see if the CPU hogging goes away. Then, you'll have to decide if you want to go through the trouble of configuring things to launch MPC-HC as an external player, or change your OS. Windows 7 would work, but costs money. I suspect that you could get a Linux install working on the Mini as well, but I don't know the details. I'm using the OpenELEC.TV build for my Revo, and while they have an Intel i386 build, it seems to be designed for the newer Intel CPUs with on-board graphics, so you may not be able to make use of your AMD GPU, but it might still work (with you utilizing the on-board Intel graphics instead). The OpenELEC build works great on my Revo.

I'm currently trying out Windows 7 it seems to have solved my issues so far. I'm still configuring things but it looks like I'll need Win7 for proper HD audio and video. But it took a while to get the AMD drivers and Catalyst software working properly, but I think it's ok now. CPU/CVPU usage is now in the single digits for both! Thanks for you input.
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post #444 of 490
3/14/13 at 3:30pm
PLEX doesn't support HD Audio at the present time AFAIK.
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post #445 of 490
3/14/13 at 3:52pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by abshole View Post

For some reason I have entire seasons of TV shows not showing up. I can create a new section for TV shows and add in the ones that don't show up the first time and they add perfectly fine. Seems the number I can get per section is around 10. Not sure what's causing it to happen. Any help?

Did you try manually refreshing the section? If that doesn't work try a deep scan. Otherwise you may not be organizing things properly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sammy2 View Post

PLEX doesn't support HD Audio at the present time AFAIK.

HD audio is included in the successor to Plex Media Center called Plex Home Theater, which should be released soon.
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post #446 of 490
3/14/13 at 5:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by lockdown571 View Post

Did you try manually refreshing the section? If that doesn't work try a deep scan. Otherwise you may not be organizing things properly.
HD audio is included in the successor to Plex Media Center called Plex Home Theater, which should be released soon.

Any news on a release date for PHT?
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post #447 of 490
3/14/13 at 5:41pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dragon Reborn View Post

Any news on a release date for PHT?

There's no timeline. If you're a Plex Pass member you have access to the beta, which is has been perfectly stable for me for some time now.
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post #448 of 490
3/14/13 at 6:51pm
yeah, PHT seems pretty good. I like it.
If you like Plex, you should consider a subscription to support them and get some goodies like plexsync for offline viewing on mobile devices. I did the lifetime membership for $75, but there are monthly and yearly options if you want to dip your toes in the water...
great group of developers
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post #449 of 490
3/14/13 at 6:55pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by skro View Post

yeah, PHT seems pretty good. I like it.
If you like Plex, you should consider a subscription to support them and get some goodies like plexsync for offline viewing on mobile devices. I did the lifetime membership for $75, but there are monthly and yearly options if you want to dip your toes in the water...
great group of developers

Yup, I'm using it on both of my HTPCs now. It's awesome. There are some other exciting developments like Linux builds, including I believe an OpenELEC build, in the works. Also this.
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post #450 of 490
3/14/13 at 7:22pm
Ha! Yes! Raspberry Pi support would be great. I wonder if Plex running on my ReadyNAS will be sufficient for blu-ray MKVs with HD audio. I know there are issues with raspberry pi and HD audio, but the issue is the Readynas can't transcode well at all, so if it can't play at least the video natively, I'm probably out of luck. I hope it could at least handle the audio conversion.
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